Rocket Men

It'll be 50 years in May since Alan Shepard strapped in for his fifteen-minute joy ride to the upper limits of Earth's atmosphere to become the first man with U.S.A. on his jumper to spy space through a window. It marked an entry point into a decade—beginning with that surging, other-level celebrity of Shepard's gang, the "Mercury 7"—when astronauts occupied a stratum of masculine cool that sort of crowded out everyone else. It was the ultimate fraternity—a group of half-cocked elite test pilots who thought it'd be fun to sit atop rockets, float around in tinfoil suits, eventually carry on toward the moon, and on each occasion plummet back toward offshore ocean depths like hot, streaking orphan hunks of meteor rock. (Not that the fun of this even needs to be explicitly detailed: I'm guessing you've all read—or at least watched—The Right Stuff.) But after their missions, a new set of challenges would inevitably emerge: how to trade in the flight-ready uniforms (and inner-sanctum privacy of their pre-NASA living) for camera-steady suits and the perpetuity of the public eye. So, let's take a brief style tour through the ten years—projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo included—when spacemen lived in the limelight.

Two of the original Mercury 7: John Glenn (left) in patented bow tie and Alan Shepard. February 22, 1961

Photo: Bettmann/CORBIS

Shepard (knotted up) and Glenn (piped in his polo) on the horn with Gus Grissom prior to Grissom's Mercury jaunt. Shepard—the first American in space—gives Grissom (the second) some pointers; Glenn (the third) preps for his orbit shot. July 18, 1961

The Mercury 7 hangin' by a prototype for the command modules that would ultimately return them safely to Earth. Again, Glenn with bow tie; Gordo with a tie-splash of camo; and Scott Carpenter's the cad in the tan plaid (like D. Draper on a summer date w/ Dr. Faye Miller this past season...) August 1, 1961

Photo: Bettmann/CORBIS

One of four Navy/Marine Corps men in the Mercury 7, Glenn reps a jacket approximating the classic midshipman peacoat during a trip home to visit his wife, Annie. February 3, 1962

Carpenter enjoys the perks of his celebrity: with Barbra Streisand in September 1964 after taking in a performance of Funny Girl

Photo: Bettmann/CORBIS

Alan Shepard and a gaggle of co-astronauts suit up to throw out a collective opening pitch for the first-ever regular-season home game at Houston's Astrodome. April 12, 1965

Photo: Bettmann/CORBIS

Deke Slayton—the only one of the "7" who never went up with the Mercury program—in thin-lapel charcoal suit w/ horizontal-striped tie, the color of all eight shades of Texas soil. Bonus fighter-pilot radness: Slayton wore it high and tight (and gray) until the day he died. December 14, 1965

Gemini astronauts Edward White (left) and James McDivitt suited up, with wives, at a press conference in '65.

Photo: Francis Miller/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Apollo 8 (the first manned spaceflight to leave Earth's orbit—and to orbit the moon) crew member William Anders cuts loose—and waayyy up the leg—with son Glen in December '68.

Photo: Ralph Morse/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Moonwalkers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and poor-dude-who-had-to-man-the-command-module-and-hang-in-moon-orbit Michael Collins, in London during their global victory lap. October 14, 1969

Photo: Bentley Archive/Popperfoto/Getty Images

(left to right) Aldrin, Collins, and Armstrong with President Nixon in '69—each in indelibly classic shawl-collar tus.

Photo: Bettmann/CORBIS

The four Apollo 13 flight controllers (foreground) celebrate the safe splashdown of the battered command module. Most of the members of Mission Control wear that space nerd chic white-shortsleeve-skinny-black-tie ensemble. But take special note of Eugene Kranz (second from left), whose "lucky" white vest—hand-knit each mission by his wife—was made famous by Ed Harris in the movie you all recognize it from. April 17, 1970

Rocket Men

We tend to imagine 1960s-era astronauts as only in their shiny spacesuits, looking unbeatably cool en route to outer space. But upon return to Earth, they embraced the traditional—terrestrial—yet impeccably stylish looks of the era, too

It'll be 50 years in May since Alan Shepard strapped in for his fifteen-minute joy ride to the upper limits of Earth's atmosphere to become the first man with U.S.A. on his jumper to spy space through a window. It marked an entry point into a decade—beginning with that surging, other-level celebrity of Shepard's gang, the "Mercury 7"—when astronauts occupied a stratum of masculine cool that sort of crowded out everyone else. It was the ultimate fraternity—a group of half-cocked elite test pilots who thought it'd be fun to sit atop rockets, float around in tinfoil suits, eventually carry on toward the moon, and on each occasion plummet back toward offshore ocean depths like hot, streaking orphan hunks of meteor rock. (Not that the fun of this even needs to be explicitly detailed: I'm guessing you've all read—or at least watched—The Right Stuff.) But after their missions, a new set of challenges would inevitably emerge: how to trade in the flight-ready uniforms (and inner-sanctum privacy of their pre-NASA living) for camera-steady suits and the perpetuity of the public eye. So, let's take a brief style tour through the ten years—projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo included—when spacemen lived in the limelight.